Zeynep Yas has recorded the lives and works of 32 female singers from different geographies, digitized them, and prepared a unique archive with a project that was carried out in cooperation with the European Union.
"Our objective is to find the voices of Kurdish women in history. The oldest one - and we only have her voice - is Ms. Nazli. The song was recorded in Gaziantep in 1902 in Zincirli," Yas, the project manager, told Rudaw Monday.
Yas also announced that in addition to the 32 digitized voices, they have begun working on digitizing another 130 female voices.
A group of singers captured the attention of music enthusiasts by singing some of the newly-digitized Kurdish folk songs.
The project was completed in a year by a team of ten people.
In addition to digitization, the project aims to publish a book to shed light on the 32 female singers, covering every aspect of their lives.
"We have a very important role in Kurdish music, unfortunately, because men were the dominant voices, many [women] were not heard. They remained hidden," said artist Sebahattin Xoce.
Ihsan Zanyar, a music teacher who is part of the project, spoke of his role.
"In this project, the voices were already recorded. I wrote down their lyrics and words, and then I listened to those voices and put them into notation with details about Kurdish music methods," Zanyar said.
